House Rules
This is a collection of rule changes, rule additions, and options that players should be aware of when playing in the world of Torar. Character Options Basic Packs All characters begin with a basic pack. This include a backpack (used to carry the other crap), 3 torches, a bedroll, a winter blanket, 2 weeks of rations, 2 waterskins (2 weeks of water), flint and tinder, 2 changes of clothing, 50 ft. of hemp rope, a pack knife (per dagger, but does 1d3 damage, crit 20/X2), 3 empty sacks, and up to 5 gp of items or 5 items, whichever is less (can only be used to purchase common items). Character Backgrounds, Traits, and Flaws All players are required to develop backgrounds for their characters before being allowed to play. The backgrounds can be as simple or complex as desired, but generally should be both thorough and brief (exposition, not novella). This site has a very good walkthrough in the type of background that needs to be created: http://www.farlandworld.com/background.html Well-written backgrounds may be rewarded with additional starting benefits (more gold, extra skill points or feats, etc). All characters are required to have at least one flaw. This can be anything from a pathological fear of spiders to only having one eye to being socially inept to being hunted by vampires. Any mental, physical, social, or supernatural flaw is acceptable but it must be game affecting and must be approved by the DM. A character can seek out ways to resolve this flaw during gameplay, but cannot begin perfect. Combat Fatigue Combat is fatiguing no matter if you are swinging a sword or casting spells. After a character has been in combat for a number of rounds equal to his Constitution score, he begins his next round fatigued (cannot run, sprint, or charge, and suffer a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity). If the character was already fatigued, he becomes exhausted instead. After an additional number of rounds in combat equal to his Constitution score, the character begins the following round exhausted (cannot run, sprint, or charge, move at half speed, and suffer a -6 penalty to Strength and Dexterity). A character may spend a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity to gain a second wind, gaining an additional number of rounds following the second wind equal to his Constitution score before suffering fatigue. An already fatigued or exhausted ''character cannot gain a second wind. By resting for 5 minutes after combat a character can reduce ''exhausted to fatigued, or eliminate the fatigued condition brought on by extended combat. Divine Intervention As a swift action a character may beseech his deity for aid once per day. Characters beholden to no god do not have this option. The player rolls a d% and hopes to get a low result. In this roll the character needs to get a result equal to or below the DC rather than equal to or above it, as normal rolls require. The DC is 1% per effective character level (ECL). The roll may be affected by one or more modifiers, as seen on the Divine Intervention Modifiers table below. While each deity will have its own ideas on how best to aid its followers, some sample effects are listed in the Divine Intervention Outcomes table below. The exact outcome is chosen by the deity (i.e. the DM), not the player, and can vary wildly between deities. This table is provided to give players an idea of the types of effects that can occur. Divine Intervention DC Modifiers Dvine Intervention Outcomes Experience Points Characters have two experience point pools: the leveling pool and the improvement pool. A character may move experience from the leveling to the improvement pool when it is gained, but not vice versa and experience may not be reassigned after being gained. Experience may be awarded to a specific pool. Experience in the leveling pool is treated normally: it is the experience total a player should look at to determine whether his character gains a level. Experience in the improvement pool is not used to determine the character’s level. Rather, experience in this pool can be used to purchase additional skills/feats/ability score points, create magical items, buy off a level adjustment or a permanent negative level, pay for spells that require experience point expenditures, and so forth. Essentially any use of experience other than gaining levels can be taken from this pool or the leveling pool at the player’s choice. Fate Points Over the course of having adventures and promoting the ideals that the character follows, he accumulates fate or luck. A character accumulates a fate point every time he rolls a natural 1 or natural 20 on a d20 ability check, attack roll, saving throw, skill check, or any other non-damage d20 roll. A character may spend these points to aid him in times of need, but may never spend more than 1 per round. Each point spent can do one of several things: · Add to a d20 roll (+1d6 if level 1-7, +2d6 if level 8-14, +3d6 if level 15-23, +4d6 if level 24-49, and +5d6 if level 50+). · Regain the use of one spent class ability (A paladin’s smite, a druid’s wild shape, a barbarian’s rage, etc. Does not include spells per day.). · Gain one additional attack at your highest attack bonus when performing a full attack action. · Recall the last spell you cast up to 1 round ago and regain that spell. · Increase the effective caster level of the next spell you cast within 1 round (+1d4 if level 1-7, +2d4 if level 8-14, +3d4 if level 15-23, +4d4 if level 24-49, and +5d4 if level 50+). · Automatically stabilize if dying. A character may not accumulate more fate points than 5 + Luck bonus + ½ character level. Initiative A character’s initiative modifier is based on either Dexterity or Wisdom, whichever is higher. Luck Every character has a seventh ability score called Luck (Luk). During character creation the player rolls a d20, rerolling anything below a 5. This becomes the character’s Luck score. It has an ability bonus and functions just like any other ability score, except that it is only employed when the DM specifies. Wide Arcs All characters with a base attack bonus of at least +1 may attempt a wide arc combat maneuver using a melee weapon of at least one-hand size that deals slashing or bludgeoning damage (piercing and ballistic damage type weapons cannot use the wide arc maneuver). This is a full attack action that allows a character to strike up to his Dex bonus worth of adjacent foes that he currently threatens (minimum 2). He may make an attack roll against the foe on either end of his wide arc. If he succeeds, he may make another attack roll with a cumulative -2 penalty against the next foe in the arc until he misses, at which point the wide arc ends and he rolls damage individually for each struck foe. Damage is unaffected. Character Improvement Maximum Hit Points A character may spend experience to gain maximum hit points each time he gains a level unless this would de-level him the level he is buying this for. It costs based on hit die type, as seen in this table. Purchasing Additional Ability Score Points A character may spend time and experience to increase his ability score points. To do so will require a number of weeks of training a minimum of 8 hours per day. A minimum of 4 weeks must be spent training, and an additional number of weeks equal to your current modifier in that ability score. At the end of this training period the character must then spend experience points to gain the increase in the ability score. The amount needed is (500xp per character level) x the total number of weeks spent training. A character may only gain 1 ability score point using this method during any given level. This cap is not retroactive; therefore un-gained ability score points do not roll over to the character’s next level. Purchasing Additional Feats A character may spend time and experience to gain additional feats beyond the normally allotted feats the character can gain. To do so the character must dedicate eight hours a day for several weeks to learning the feat. A minimum of 2 weeks must be spent training. For every prerequisite the feat has, except specific class or race level requirements, the number of weeks training takes increases by 1. Epic feats require 2 additional weeks. After this the character must make an ability score roll using the most applicable ability score that the feat affects or that affects the feat (Strength for the Power Attack feat, key casting ability score for Metamagic feats, Charisma for the Leadership feat, etc). The DC for this roll is 10 + 1 per week of training required. A character that designs and describes an innovative and/or effective training regime may gain up to a +8 circumstance bonus to this check at the DM's discretion. If training with a mentor that has the feat, you gain an insight bonus to this check equal to half the mentor’s level (rounded down, minimum +1). If this check fails the time is wasted and the character may either give up or try again, spending the required amount of time again. This continues until the character either gives up or succeeds. Once a character succeeds, he must then expend experience points to gain the feat. The amount needed to be expended is (50xp per character level) x the total number of weeks required to learn the feat (including additional weeks for failing the roll). A character may only learn 2 feats using this method during any given level. A character must meet all prerequisites for a feat before he can attempt to learn it using this method. This cap is not retroactive; therefore unlearned bonus feats do not roll over to the character’s next level. Purchasing Additional Skills A character may spend time and experience to purchase ranks in a skill beyond his normally-allotted skill points. To do so the character must spend eight hours a day for 1 week training if the skill can be used untrained, or two weeks if the skill is trained use only. A cross-class skill takes 1 additional week. At the end of this time the character must make a check with the key ability for that skill (DC 12 + 1 per 2 preexisting ranks in the skill, rounded up). The character gains a +2 bonus to this check if he has a racial ability or a feat that grants a bonus to the skill in question (e.g. high elven characters gain a +2 bonus to their Wisdom checks when trying to raise their Spot ranks). A character that designs and describes an innovative and/or effective training regimen may gain up to a +8 circumstance bonus to this check at the DM's discretion. Training with a mentor that has at least 3 more ranks in the skill than you grants you an insight bonus to the roll equal to half the difference in skill ranks between the mentor and yourself (rounded down). If this check fails, the character must spend more time and make another check. This continues until the character gives up or succeeds. When the check finally succeeds the character must spend experience to gain the rank he is attempting to achieve. The amount of experience is (10xp per character level (or 20xp per character level is the skill is cross-class)) x the rank being gained. Once this is done the character gains a rank in the skill. This system may not be used to improve a skill beyond the character's maximum ranks for that skill. A character may gain up to his Intelligence bonus (maximum 4, minimum 1) in bonus skill ranks in this way each level. This cap is not retroactive; therefore unlearned bonus skill ranks do not roll over to the character’s next level. Quintessence As the heroes complete adventures and perform heroic... or nefarious... deeds, they begin to accumulate a sort of spiritual gravitas called quintessence. The methods for determine quintessence gain are a closely guarded secret of the DM, but it is known to be an extremely difficult reward to obtain. Quintessence has two uses: 1) to increase the party's group level, which is accomplished by spending the quintessence; and 2) by saving quintessence a character can begin the slow and arduous crawl toward ascension and perhaps even godhood one day. This begins at 10 quintessence, and every power of 10 afterward (100, 1000, 10,000, etc). Only the DM can decide if and when quintessence is earned, and when saved quintessence might allow a hero to begin ascension. Rule Changes Attack Roll Bonuses All attack rolls with weapons (including unarmed attacks) will use Dexterity instead of the normal ability modifier. Damage rolls remain unchanged. When implementing this rule the Weapon Finesse feat changes so that it instead allows you to add your Dexterity modifier to the chosen weapon’s damage rolls instead of your Strength modifier.'' '(Optional rule; may or may not be implemented in every game)'' Dying and Death A character does not die at -10 hit points, but rather when his negative hit points exceed his Constitution score. If a character is healed back above this threshold within 1 round of being brought below it, he returns to life and loses 1 point of Constitution permanently. Favored Classes If a character takes a level in his race’s favored class, he requires 10% less experience points to achieve the next level in that class. For example, an elf’s favored class is war dancer. He requires only 900xp to get his second level in war dancer. If instead of war dancer he chooses another class for his second level, he must reach 1000xp like normal. Knowledge (arcana) and Identifying Magical Items By making a Knowledge (arcana) check (DC 15 + the caster level of the item), a character can learn the basic functions of a magical item. This check takes 1 minute to perform and the item must have some outwardly visible sign of magical enchantment. Casting detect magic grants a +10 circumstance bonus to this check. Casting identify counts as taking 20 on the check. Knowledge (military tactics) and Initiative Every 5 ranks in the Knowledge (Military Tactics) skill grants a +1 insight bonus to Initiative checks. Massive Damage Massive damage rules are not used. Skill Points and Class/Cross-class Skills All skills cost 1 skill point per rank, and all skills have a maximum rank equal to your character level. Skills listed as class skills in any class that you possess may gain a +3 unnamed bonus. This bonus may count as additional ranks for purposes of qualifying for prestige classes and feats. This bonus is only gained by spending a skill point to activate it for each class skill you possess (for skills with multiple iterations (Knowledge, Craft, etc), these are bought for individual iterations of the skills). Skill points are no longer multiplied at first level. Spell Critical Hits Any spell that requires a touch attack, melee or ranged, is capable of critically striking. All applicable spells have a critical range of 20. If a spell successfully critically strikes, any saving throw DC involving the spell increases by +4, and the spell deals damage as if the caster were 4 levels higher. Spellbooks Spells of 1st - 5th level are considered to take up only 1 page each (0-level spells taking up half a page). Spells of 6th – 9th level take up 2 pages each (or one front-and-back page). Epic spells take up 1 page per 10 points of the Spellcraft DC. Spellcraft Spellcasters can use the Spellcraft skill to try and avoid hitting allies. By making a Spellcraft check while casting a spell (DC 15 + 2x the spell’s level) he can grant one ally within the area the evasion ability. Every 5 points he beats the DC by allows him to grant another ally the evasion ability. If an ally already has evasion (or by increasing the DC by +10), this improves to granting improved evasion. If an ally already has improved evasion (or by increasing the DC by +20), this causes them to be completely unaffected by the spell. Tumble Every 5 ranks in the Tumble skill grants a +1 dodge bonus to AC. Category:Rules